


red sweaters in springtime

by orphan_account



Series: hqlog [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Depression, Finger Sucking, In Tsukishima’s POV, Introspection, Jealousy, M/M, Multi, No Plot/Plotless, Polyamory, Worldbuilding, will be adding tags as needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 08:07:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21388861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Premise based on this art: https://twitter.com/shigurefusawa/status/1193134138540224512?s=20
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou/Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei, Akaashi Keiji/Tsukishima Kei, Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei, Past Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Series: hqlog [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1541977
Comments: 3
Kudos: 36





	red sweaters in springtime

**Author's Note:**

> Premise based on this art: https://twitter.com/shigurefusawa/status/1193134138540224512?s=20

Kuroo’s foot edges under the cotton of his sock, tentatively arching upwards. 

His smile beckons, and Tsukishima can’t breathe.

“Another toast!” 

Laughing warmly enough to set their low-set table ablaze, Bokuto thrusts his glass full of imported, costly beer into the air. 

“To whom,” Akaashi says, and Tsukishima watches Bokuto’s gaze snag on Akaashi’s lips.

Bokuto’s voice is stunningly serious when he says, “My future husband.”

They’ve talked marriage any number of times. Haven’t stopped talking about it since news of Taiwan’s revolutionary ruling, coupled with everyone in their friend group within a five mile radius getting engaged, mutual wedding invitations filling their mailboxes.

That doesn’t change Akaashi’s reaction when Bokuto presents their truth as fact, an oath to his devotion, a vow branded on his heart. His cheekbones glowing with a violent scarlet hue, Akaashi demurs, lowering his glass of beer in an effort to contemplate the foam forming swirls around the ghostly markings left by his lips. 

Under the table, Tsukishima pats his thigh with the fingertips of his right hand. From the corner of his eye, he catches Akaashi’s swift smile, brief and stunning, an apparition in a cathedral’s stained glass. 

Why can’t he breathe normally for once?

“Say, what if we had a joint wedding?”

He has to reorient his focal point completely before realising Kuroo silenced the room with those words. Of course he did. He never thinks before he speaks. Never considers the mounting implications of his statements. 

Kuroo’s smile could shatter icicles into reflective rainbows. Tsukishima knows he knows this.

“Kuroo-san,” and here Akaashi, ever the voice of reason, dares himself not to smile over the rim of his beer, “we haven’t even decided on a venue for our own, much less _yours_.”

“All the more reason we can decide together!” 

“Um.”

Everyone turns to stare at Tsukishima, Kuroo’s lips unfurling into a playful flower.

“Marriage as a concept is outdated, not to mention it kind of perpetuates the notion of control. So, um, why not live together without that permanence?”

Something dims in Kuroo’s eyes, momentarily flickering before ebbing out. Slowly, his foot slips back down Tsukishima’s ankle, his hands unnaturally still on the table.

Softly, Akaashi says, “But what if I want this, Tsukishima-san?”

This is why he doesn’t often open his mouth at parties, not without alcohol, the unfailing truth-telling serum. Akaashi’s not one to back away from an argument, relentlessly open to intellectual discussion, forever wanting to explore topics Tsukishima would rather peruse through books. He wishes the two of them were in the university library now, the lights lit low, the sunset slanting over green-tinted lamps, both of them thrust hip-deep in research papers.

“I’ll support you no matter what, Akaashi.”

He can’t allow the night to devolve into this. Not now, not with Kuroo edging further away from the table, a yawn creeping over his lips. Akaashi’s shoulders tremble, and he smiles in that tense way he does before launching into an articulate rebuttal. 

Clearing his throat, Kuroo says, “I’m gonna step out.”

Another night ruined. Another relationship squandered on cynicism. 

Tsukishima scrapes himself from the ground before following Kuroo out of the room, his jacket abandoned.

-

Outside, wretched winds bite against his cheeks before shuddering through his jaw, and Tsukishima yearns for the compressive embrace of his jacket.

Too late; Kuroo’s already spotted him, stood beneath the restaurant’s vintage signage, white and pearled against the washed-out hues of November clouds. That wry discernment of the world around him is back in his eyes, or a fond resignation, something pooling from their depths to tug Tsukishima back into his gentle orbit. He smiles, warm, a palm pressed to the heart. His hands shaking, Tsukishima steps forward, arms cautiously outspread, then halts. He can’t hold him now. Elbows poking into his ribs, he leans into the restaurant’s burned out brick.

Kuroo sighs. “I blame Bokuto for this.”

“Huh. Why?”

Kuroo turns his head down, and Tsukishima thinks about dipping his hand under Kuroo’s chin in an effort to follow the trajectory of his thoughts, the speed with which they multiply.

“He didn’t have to make this about him,” Kuroo is saying, laughter bubbling beneath the words, “but he did. And Akaashi handled it gracefully, as he does.”

“Yep.”

They’re all a little bit in love with one another. They always have been. They always will be.

“Do you _ want _ to live with me?”

Kuroo’s definitely looking at him now, as though pondering an artifact of unutterable importance, admiring the wonders within.

Rolling his eyes, Tsukishima says, “I sleep on your futon; I drink from your mugs; I laze around in your apartment in your sweater.”

Really and truly laughing, Kuroo’s head tilts back, and Tsukishima wants to etch this moment into the sporadic canvas of his memories.

Kuroo says, “You’re the only one worthy of that sweater besides Kenma.”

Immediately, relentlessly, with no warning, Tsukishima’s memories shutter backwards in time: _ Spring training, oddly breezy, everyone chattering and jumping in place to keep warm. Kuroo and Kenma crouching on the grass in the middle of the tumult, Kuroo’s mouth brushing against Kenma’s right ear as he slips his beloved red sweater over Kenma’s quivering shoulders. None of their teammates, nor those of the bespectacled loner, giving them the time of day, the very same loner marvelling at the drowning spiral of his heart. _

“I don’t want to talk about Kenma, Tetsurou.”

This time, Kuroo’s laugher is difficult to parse, as though he’s laughing in another language. It’s inescapable, the topic of Kenma, and every time he relearns this lesson, Tsukishima’s resolve to misplace his envy whittles into dust.

Tapping his right hand against Tsukishima’s jeans, smiling in that infuriating, knowing way, Kuroo says, “We’re sure as hell tabling that line of dialogue for tomorrow.”

Of course Kuroo will bring it to the forefront of their usual Saturday study sessions with Kenma and Akaashi. Instead of studying, Kuroo will organise an impromptu therapy appointment catering to Tsukishima’s dreadful insecurities. 

Sometimes Tsukishima wishes Kuroo was more conventional in his mannish habits and bottled hard truths up.

Kuroo’s never loved him that way.

“Can we get back to cohabitating, _ please_.”

Clasping Tsukishima’s right hand, Kuroo slams it over his own mouth. Then, scanning the road with the furtive knowledge of a stray cat, he slides the first two digits of Tsukishima’s right hand into his mouth. Sucking them down to the knuckle, hollowing his cheeks, his stomach gurgles in tandem with Tsukishima’s strained moans. 

Slanting a third digit into his mouth, Kuroo speaks around Tsukishima’s clenched fingers: “Blow me in the dorm showers again and the spare key’s yours.”

Deflecting productive discussions with sex. _ That’s _ Kuroo’s manly habit. How could he forget. Tsukishima wishes they were seventeen again, kissing themselves dehydrated on Kuroo’s childhood bed, not thinking about red sweaters in springtime. 

Though he’d probably been thinking about kissing Akaashi the entire time back then. By that point, the three of them had spent innumerable hours kissing in their respective gyms, usually long after matches ended and, in Akaashi’s case, with Bokuto’s explicit consent.

That was probably why Bokuto had never confronted the three of them about their open arrangement; it wasn’t worth bringing up, not even in the context of marriage. There was no reason for it to have to end.

“Oi, come back.”

Pulling Tsukishima’s fingers back against the inside of his jaw and out of his mouth, Kuroo flicks his forehead once with his free hand, smirking. 

“Oh, there you are,” a familiar voice says, coming over Tsukishima’s shoulder. “I thought you two had headed home.”

Wordlessly, probably without bothering to consult Bokuto, Akaashi had paid their bill, something he’s gotten into the worrying habit of doing over the last few months. Turning, Tsukishima catches him discreetly sliding his nondescript dark wallet into the left pocket of his khakis, Bokuto visibly bristling beside him. Doubtless he’s recovering from reminding Akaashi yet again that though he may come from a wealthy family, that doesn’t mean he’s obligated to treat them every time they dine somewhere even mildly upscale while in turn shoving the bitter truth that they need not pay him back down their throats. 

Sometimes his parents conveniently forget to replenish his bank account. Tsukishima suspects the reason for this extends beyond Bokuto’s attendance to every familial gathering. It’d been quite a rude awakening when all four of them had shown up to oji-san’s 90th birthday function.

“Are you two all right?” Akaashi says, Bokuto’s hand wound snugly in his.

Absurdly, Tsukishima stares in astonishment at their ringed fingers, at their testament to commitment. 

Commitment. _Kenma_.

“I don’t think I can do this.”

He pushes past Kuroo, walking down the meandering pathway through the gated community, past mothers carrying kids on their bicycles, past fathers in suits headed out for drinks with their coworkers. He’s bound to get lost. He’s never traversed this area of Tokyo without a guide.

That’s fine. 

He’s fine.

He keeps walking, ignoring the sting behind his glasses.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the LLF Comment Project (including the LLF Comment Builder), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates responses, including:  
Short comments  
Long comments  
Questions  
“<3” as extra kudos  
Reader-reader interaction  
This author replies to comments.


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